Monday, April 16, 2012

Deep Canyon Standoff

Written Feb. 6

Dearborn sighed in relief, getting out
of his truck. He glanced at the fender, briefly, but it looked like
the damage was cosmetic – fucked up beyond visual recognition
perhaps, but it would probably still run. Satisfied, he crept
to the edge of the ravine and looked down, fighting the sense of
vertigo. Was it dead? He'd hoped to see its broken body at the
bottom, but either it wasn't there or wasn't visible – not
surprising given its sandy matte color and the depth of the canyon.
That meant personally going down and checking, or he could kiss his
paycheck goodbye. Swearing to himself, he retrieved his climbing gear
from the truck and started setting up.

Ten minutes later he was rappelling
slowly down the cliffside, and ten minutes after that he was at the
narrow ravine's bottom. What he saw didn't please him – it had left
tracks, deep grooves in the loose sand by the stream that had no
doubt carved this ravine. It looked like it had dragged itself off,
which was good – he'd been told it had been advertised as nigh
indestructible. If he'd damaged it, if it was off its feet, he could
probably still kill it, 'indestructible' or no, and he
could retrieve its black box. That would be valuable information;
maybe he'd get a bonus. His superiors would like that he'd done more
than make visual confirmation. They could figure out why it had gone
rogue, and whether other security androids might be susceptible to
doing the same.

This was cold comfort when he saw
where the tracks led. About a hundred meters downstream the tracks
veered underneath an overhang of rock which had eroded, revealing a
cave. Sighing, he drew his pistol and a flashlight and followed them
in.

The air in the cave was cool, but there
was no breeze. That was probably a good sign; no way out for the
'droid. Well, no way out but through him. Dearborn shivered at the
thought. He'd seen what they could do to people – snapping arms and
ribs of would-be murderers or assailants with ease. And that was on a
model with proper restrictions in place!

But this one couldn't even walk, so
that would put him at an advantage.

Right?

He resisted the sudden urge to shiver
again and swept his flashlight across the cave floor. Some sort of
rodent fled his light, and he saw a small fish in the stream that did
likewise, but –

– oh fuck –

suddenly he was
upside down and the light was gone and his gun was gone, and his
glasses, where were his glasses, and someone was screaming, oh god,
it was him, he was screaming, so he screamed some more –

“That will be
enough, Mr. Dearborn,” came a voice, and then pain blossomed across
his cheek.

“Fuck!” Was
that a rock in his mouth? He spit it out, and tasted blood.

“I believe you
have lost a tooth, Mr. Dearborn,” the 'droid intoned. “I suggest
you remain calm, or you will lose significantly more than that.”

He gulped in air.
“Did you just fucking slap me? Never mind,” he corrected
himself, and sized up the situation. One leg free – he was probably
being held by one leg. But – he couldn't be holding him
clear of the cave floor, unless...

“You tricked me,”
he said, groaning. “You fucking tricked me.”

“Indeed”, said
the drone. Dearborn wouldn't swear to it, but he thought there was a
tone of mirth in his voice. “I will admit, using your vehicle to
assault me was inspired thinking, and not following me into the
ravine must have taken skilled driving. But if you thought that you
could damage a Mark III security drone with --”

Was he gloating
now? “Yeah, yeah, spare me the specification rundown,” he
interrupted. “I heard all that shit in the briefing.”

“Very well.”
There was a whirring of servos. “Can you see what I have in my
hand?”

“No...yes.” His
gun.

“Good.” There
was a metallic creaking sound, then a pop. “I do not believe it
will ever fire again.” It disappeared, and he heard it hit the
stream with a loud plop.“You are now unarmed, and have no
hope of harming me. Nor do you have any means of escape; as I have
demonstrated, I am far faster than you are. Do you understand this?”

What choice did he
have? “Yes,” he muttered. “Loud and clear.”

“Good.” With a
whirring of servos he let go of Dearborn, who collapsed
unceremoniously to the ground.

He swore again, and
tried to get to a sitting position. “Are you going to kill me? Like
all those others?”

A terrible pause
followed.

“No,” the robot
said, finally. “Their deaths were regrettable, but I thought them
necessary. I thought they would leave me alone if I eliminated all
who followed me.” He heard, rather than saw, the 'droid leaning
closer, and imagined he could smell the stench of old motor oil
coming from him. “Clearly, I was in error.”